Search results

Perfectly predictable might be boring. On the other hand, too random is frustrating. You can't make real tactical decisions if things are too random. Personally, I think 5e finds a pretty good range between those two extremes.

I disagree. The monk has an excess of stun, and the monk isn't even considered a top tier class. Casters, by comparison, are generally constrained by concentration regarding such effects.

Given those two options, and no others, I would say the correct design choice is to tone down the powers. I'd rather have a decent ability that works a normal percentage of the time, than an absolutely OP ability that only works a tiny percentage of the time. The latter is in most cases simply...

They would've been level 13ish minions, so yes. That was kind of the beauty of how 4e scaled monsters.

Because (IMO) the way to fix the caster/martial divide isn't to give the casters all sorts of cool powers and then make it so that they can't ever stick the power at high levels. Let the casters have cool powers that actually work. Just make martials better than they currently are.

IMO, old school saves and spell resistance weren't great. They made sense in their context, particularly the way AD&D saves scaled. There were a lot of save or die effects, so having a high chance for successfully saving with a heavily invested character made sense. That said, heavy blanket...

I said that it didn't invoke any of the mechanical language that indicates a loud spell. I didn't say it doesn't list any sound. Just that it clearly isn't a loud spell as evidenced by the lack of mechanics associated with loud spells. A low roar is what my furnace makes when it turns on. You...

I've always run it that it makes a wooshing sound (like when a gas stove ignites). Which isn't soundless, but is hardly loud either. The armored guards falling over is still more than likely the primary consideration as to whether anyone hears anything (the same as sleep). In 5e we have several...

It actually doesn't have a loud bang. You can rule that it has a loud bang, but that's your own ruling. Even in Chromatic Dragons the spell description says nothing about Fireball being loud. Also, I'm pretty sure that guys in chainmail/plate holding weapons suddenly falling over could cause...

I wouldn't consider using sleep in that manner out-of-combat. Or, at least, if we consider that to be OOC then a surprise fireball that ends combat before it begins is also an OOC spell, which seems like a stretch.

LAN parties were involved. But it's not like there were no viable alternatives. My friends would often bring over their game consoles (I wasn't allowed to have any, except Game Boy for whatever reason) and we'd play games like Goldeneye until the wee hours. Took 5 minutes of setup, if that.

Yes, I have read about the Skinner box. Where do you think I got the idea? I admit I'm no expert (I work with computers, though my sister has done extensive lab work with rats), but if there was only a 1 in a 100 chance of food (with the rest being nothing or shocks) do you still think the rat...

I can see what they're saying. Purely by a reading of RAW you'd have every reason to believe that AD&D was deadlier than 5e. That said, based on experience, I agree with you. The AD&D games I played (several different groups) were the same or less deadly than 5e. It was easier to accidentally...

Yeah, I only played in one AD&D game that used the individual rewards. However the other games tended to have generous rewards for things like good roleplaying and achievement of goals. There were some individual rewards, but oftentimes it was for the entire party.

Oh, yeah, I wasn't suggesting it needs to lead to a big payoff constantly. 1% for a big payoff is fine, as long as you have a reasonable number of smaller payoffs along the way. Your response read to me like you were saying it was no problem to have a 1% chance of any payoff whatsoever.

IME, 1% is way too low to incentivize serious exploration. Sure, they'll still do a cursory inspection, but they're not going to spend significant table time if most of the time exploration results in nothing, traps, or a wandering monster. To use the analogy of a lab rat, if a rat has to push...

There's really nothing stopping a 5e DM from bringing back training rules (and the gold required) if so desired. IME, it's still fairly easy to incentivize exploration. You just have to include worthwhile things for the players to find. If they can get good stuff by exploring, then they'll...

Yup, I've played with it and while it was interesting and somewhat entertaining, my main takeaway was just how far how AI has yet to go. Nowhere near the quality of even a mediocre (much less good) GM.

If I ask whether I know how to tie my shoes and get a "no" response, and then ask if I know about troll vulnerabilities and get "yes", I'm going to quickly start to suspect that I'm getting randomized responses because that doesn't make rational sense. Moreover, characters in many editions of...

Would your games be better or worse if you randomly determined DCs? It ought to be pretty apparent that tying your shoes is typically easier than knowing trollish vulnerabilities. However, if you set the DC to a randomizer you could end up with a DC 25 to tie your shoes and 5 to know troll...